ELECTION, in English law, the obligation imposed upon a person whose property is purported to be disposed of by an in strument which confers property on him, to choose whether he will retain his own property and compensate the person to whom it is purported to be given, or transfer his own property and take the property given him by the instrument. To put a donee of property to his election three conditions must be fulfilled: (i.) The donor's gift to him must be of property the donor had free power to dispose of. Thus a gift to a beneficiary under a special power of part of the funds subject thereto does not put the beneficiary to his election if the donee of the power attempts by the same instrument to give the beneficiary's own property to someone else. (ii.) The property given must be given in such a way that the beneficiary can make compensation out of it if he chooses to retain his own. Thus a gift to a married woman of property subject to a condition against alienation does not put her to an election. (iii.) The gift must not be made conditional on the donee transferring his property. Here the case is not one of election but of alternative gifts, and if the donee elects against the instrument he thereby abandons all claim to the gift.
In cases of election it must be made clear that the donor in tended to dispose of the donee's property, but it is of no im portance whether he knew or not at the time he executed the in strument that it was the donee's property.
Elections almost invariably arise under wills, but they may arise under deeds, as, for example, when a minor executes a marriage settlement under which she assigns her property on certain trusts and receives benefits in her husband's property. She cannot, on attaining full age, repudiate her assignment and retain the bene fits conferred on her by the settlement. (See also ELECTORAL